caroll ann duffy | mr. midas

27112012

POETRY DISPATCH No.386 | November 27, 2012

Carol Ann Duffy

Editor’s Note: Though the “Poet Laureate” honor has never been my cup of tea (given the politics present in such selections), I do occasionally visit whatever fashionable Laureates have been honored on the American scene just to see if they have done anything of value for the poetry cause while holding office.

I’m pleased to remind/report that though Billy Collins (far from Laureate material in my humble estimation), sure did one fine thing in his brief “hour upon the stage”: edit the anthology, POETRY 180, A Turning Back to Poetry, an anthology of contemporary poetry that speaks so plainly, so perfectly to one and all.

He also wrote a magnificent intro to this book, wherein, in part, he describes the discomfort many readers experience dealing with a poem. Having experienced the war zone of trying to teach poetry on the high school level many years ago, I could especially relate to this quote from a student:

“Whenever I read a modern poem,” this teenage girl wrote, “it’s like my brother has his foot on the back of my neck in the swimming pool.”

Buy this book. Treasure it in your personal library. Consult it often. Give a copy to a friend—even a teenager.

Another beautiful thing about this book, and all anthologies, as far as I’m concerned, coming across a poet you have not read before. And falling in love with his or her way with words.

Which is what happened to me, discovering Carol Ann Duffy for the first time. I now own three of her books…and still counting. “Mrs. Midas” indeed. — Norbert Blei

Mrs Midas

by Carol Ann Duffy

It was late September. I’d just poured a glass of wine, begun to unwind, while the vegetables cooked. The kitchen filled with the smell of itself, relaxed, its steamy breath gently blanching the windows. So I opened one, then with my fingers wiped the other’s glass like a brow. He was standing under the pear tree snapping a twig.

Now the garden was long and the visibility poor, the way the dark of the ground seems to drink the light of the sky, but that twig in his hand was gold. And then he plucked a pear from a branch – we grew Fondante d’Automne - and it sat in his palm like a light bulb. On. I thought to myself, Is he putting fairy lights in the tree?

He came into the house. The doorknobs gleamed. He drew the blinds. You know the mind; I thought of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Miss Macready. He sat in that chair like a king on a burnished throne. The look on his face was strange, wild, vain. I said, What in the name of God is going on? He started to laugh.

I served up the meal. For starters, corn on the cob. Within seconds he was spitting out the teeth of the rich. He toyed with his spoon, then mine, then with the knives, the forks. He asked where was the wine. I poured with shaking hand, a fragrant, bone-dry white from Italy, then watched as he picked up the glass, goblet, golden chalice, drank.

It was then that I started to scream. He sank to his knees. After we had both calmed down, I finished the wine on my own, hearing him out. I made him sit on the other side of the room and keep his hands to himself. I locked the cat in the cellar. I moved the phone. The toilet I didn’t mind. I couldn’t believe my ears:

how he’d had a wish. Look, we all have wishes; granted. But who has wishes granted? Him. Do you know about gold? It feeds no one; aurum, soft, untarnishable; slakes no thirst. He tried to light a cigarette; I gazed, entranced, as the blue flame played on its luteous stem. At least, I said, you’ll be able to give up smoking for good.

Separate beds. In fact, I put a chair against my door, near petrified. He was below, turning the spare room into the tomb of Tutankhamun. You see, we were passionate then, in those halcyon days; unwrapping each other, rapidly, like presents, fast food. But now I feared his honeyed embrace, the kiss that would turn my lips to a work of art.

And who, when it comes to the crunch, can live with a heart of gold? That night, I dreamt I bore his child, its perfect ore limbs, its little tongue like a precious latch, its amber eyes holding their pupils like flies. My dream-milk burned in my breasts. I woke to the streaming sun.

So he had to move out. We’d a caravan in the wilds, in a glade of its own. I drove him up under cover of dark. He sat in the back. And then I came home, the women who married the fool who wished for gold. At first I visited, odd times, parking the car a good way off, then walking.

You knew you were getting close. Golden trout on the grass. One day, a hare hung from a larch, a beautiful lemon mistake. And then his footprints, glistening next to the river’s path. He was thin, delirious; hearing, he said, the music of Pan from the woods. Listen. That was the last straw.

What gets me now is not the idiocy or greed but lack of thought for me. Pure selfishness. I sold the contents of the house and came down here. I think of him in certain lights, dawn, late afternoon, and once a bowl of apples stopped me dead. I miss most, even now, his hands, his warm hands on my skin, his touch.

[from POETRY 180, A Turning Back to Poetry, Billy Collins, Random House 2003]

Love this poem and adore her work in general. I had the privilege of hearing her read this one in Chicago a few years back. Her reading voice is scrumptious: slow, wry, that wicked accent. Thanks for sharing.

i don’t know much about Midas but this is one hell of a poem. keep thinking i’ve met this guy! and she was smart to sell the furniture. good move. what is missed most…certain light. warm hands. fairy lights. his touch. yes.
thanks norb.

other Norbert Blei web pages

The coop has flown

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Norbert Blei | 1935 – 2013

On the back roads of Door County again

Norbert Blei – 2012

Photo by Bobbie Krinsky

Norbert Blei – 2012

Photo by Jeffrey Winke

Norbert Blei – 2011

Photo by Sharon Auberle

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